CONCERN is growing among local authorities who say that they are desperately moving to put in place newer measures to reduce road deaths. They say that statistics from across the world are showing that road traffic injuries have become the leading cause of death of people in the 15-29 age group.

The data released by the United Nations has already started to cause jitters for authorities in Jamaica, who said they were aware that many practices identified overseas are regularly brought to the shores of

the island.

Local authorities say already they have started to see signs on the island’s roads. Information from the Mona Geoinformatics show an increase in fatal crashes involving public passenger vehicles (PPVs) with 50 deaths recorded in 2014, involving 76 vehicles.

Officials from the Ministry of Transport, Works and Housing said that part of the strategy was to try to educate members of the public, especially males as statistics show that a total of 73 per cent of the people killed in recorded road deaths were males.

Minister of Transport, Works and Housing Dr Omar Davies stated: “Over the past five years, over 1,500 persons were killed in nearly 1,400 crashes in Jamaica.”

The statistics show that the country was averaging just over one death per crash, the minister said.

Dr Davies was speaking at the launch of the Choose Right Choose Life Communication Campaign, which seeks to encourage the use of legal public transportation. The event was held at Ministry of Transport, Works and Housing in St Andrew last week.

Authorities said that they are seeking to encourage the use of legal public transportation through a communication campaign geared at discouraging the use of illegally operated motor vehicles by highlighting the associated risks and dangers to commuters under the campaign.

In most instances inappropriate human behaviour had been deemed as the main cause for the crashes.

The transport ministry said that four out of five of the deaths which resulted from crashes on the island’s roads were males.

Statistics also showed that most of the persons killed were travelling in vehicles being driven by males, head of the Police Traffic Division Calvin Allen confirmed.

Road traffic injuries cause 1.3 million deaths and between 20 and 50 million injuries each year, a report from the United Nations has disclosed.